Referring to FIG. 1, before a computer document or file 110 is sent by a computer to be printed or otherwise imaged on a medium 150, such as paper, the computer must first convert a screen representation 120 (or a word processing or image file) to information in a format that can be understood by an imaging device 140 that actually does the printing. Such operations are performed by software on the computer commonly referred to as device drivers. The format of the information supplied to the imaging device by the device driver may differ depending on the kind of imaging device in use. For example, an imaging device directly connected to a port of a personal computer receives information sent by the computer essentially in a bitmap format, i.e., a format that provides a pixel-by-pixel representation of the document or image, although, typically, some data compression will be performed. More complex imaging devices intended for use in network environments such as depicted generally in FIG. 2, have onboard processors that receive and translate imaging information that has been sent in a more concise format. For printer imaging devices, this format is referred to as a printer device language (PDL). PDLs such as Hewlett Packard Printer Command Language (PCL) and Adobe Postscript® provide instructions to imaging devices that describe the document to be imaged in terms of characteristics such as fonts, typographical characters, document layout, geometric shapes, and other attributes that can be interpreted by the imaging device by referring to a library maintained by the imaging device. A PDL imaging job thus can be transmitted efficiently over a network or other transmission link and processed by an imaging device that has the necessary PDL processing capability. In any event, regardless of whether the imaging job is transmitted in bitmap, PCL, or other format, the imaging job is generated on the computer by software referred to as a device driver.
A number of device drivers are likely to be available for the same basic imaging device. Device drivers exist for different operating systems, PDLs, computer hardware capabilities, imaging device hardware features, software versions, firmware releases, compression schemes, and so forth. In addition, new versions (releases) of imaging device drivers are released by manufacturers from time to time to address known bugs and to add additional features. It would be best to install new imaging device drivers as soon as possible after their release to ensure proper operation and take advantage of all of the capabilities of the imaging devices. Unfortunately, installation of the new drivers does not always take place until after a problem with the imaging device has been noted and a service call has been made. Of course, service calls can be quite expensive and users can become frustrated with their machines resulting in lost productivity. Occasionally tech support staff may even inadvertently contribute to the problem in the course of installing new software since it is sometimes the case that a new version of a program or operating system is packaged with one or more out of date device drivers. Use of out of date device drivers can result in less than optimal imaging device performance, cause errors in imaging and possibly provoke network and computer crashes. It is thus desirable to ensure, with a minimum of user or staff intervention, that device drivers be the latest versions available. The present invention addresses the foregoing problems, at least in part, as well as other problems, which will be understood by reading and studying the following specification.